How Much To Give
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Mia thinks of herself too much, Sarah not enough. They could learn from each other. Sarah/Carl.


How Much To Give

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Love Actually

Copyright: Richard Curtis

When Mia went to freshen her makeup in the office bathroom, the last thing she expected to overhear was someone's personal crisis. Behind the locked stall closest to the door, however, came the unmistakable voice of her co-worker Sarah: American, very clear, and with that high-pitched edge of barely controlled panic she always had when talking on her mobile.

"I know, babe. I know … believe me, I wish I could, but I'm at work, you remember, I told you about my job – if my boss finds out … No, no, of _course_ not … Darling, don't say that! Please don't! You know I can't stand it when you talk like that! Why do you always - How many times do I have to tell you – " Her voice suddenly lowered, worn out with sadness, exhaustion or both. "Thank you, Doctor … oh, that's okay, I'm used to it … I didn't mean to upset him, tell him that. Tell him I'm sorry."

The mobile clicked shut, and behind the locked door, Sarah began to cry like the little girl that, for all her thirty-odd years, her colleagues sometimes suspected she still was.

Mia squirmed. Her first instinct was to back out of there, makeup or no makeup, and act as if nothing had happened. Personally, there was nothing she hated more than people catching her with her barriers down. It made it so easy for them to hurt you. How absurd of Sarah to live like this, at the mercy of the man on the other end of the mobile, and any other random passerby who heard them. Absurd and noble. Mia's platform boots refused to move.

The door swung open, and Sarah came out. She looked, if possible, even worse than Mia had pictured her: red-nosed, tear-streaked, blotchy, her reddish-blond hair tumbled as if she'd raked her hands through it more than once in that nervous habit of hers. Her hands came up even now in a desperate effort to smooth it down. She sidled past Mia on the way to the sink, avoiding her eyes.

 _The hell with it,_ Mia thought.

"Hey, Sarah. Did you know I'd been sacked this morning?" she said out loud, leaning against the counter with steadied nonchalance.

Sarah, cupping her hands under a tap to make the water run, shook her head without turning around.

"Well, I have. And there's one thing I've always wanted to say to you before I go."

"What?" Sarah asked, the words muffled by her hands as she washed her face.

"Switch. Off. Your. Bloody. Phone."

Sarah's face emerged from behind her hands, blotchier than ever and wide-eyed with indignation. "Y-you – you don't understand – I _have_ to keep it on."

"No, you don't." Mia was beginning to enjoy herself. Giving good advice had the benefit of being in control of the conversation; perhaps she should try it more often. "Who is that, your boyfriend? Whoever he is, if he's got doctors looking after him, why don't you just back off and let them do their jobs?"

"He's my _brother,_ " Sarah snapped, with an energy that was good to see after the limp dishrag she had resembled a few minutes ago. "And our parents are dead. I'm all he has. He _needs_ me. Someone like you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, that's right," Mia drawled, folding her arms, expertly disguising the stab of hurt she still felt when people talked to her like this. "I'm just the office slut, who lives alone with her jewelry collection. What would I understand about relationships, is that what you're saying? Believe me, I understand enough."

"Oh, Mia, no! I didn't mean it like that." Sarah's grey eyes softened with remorse, and she put a gentle hand on Mia's sleeve. "It's just … it's just that you always seem so strong. So independent. Like you don't need anyone."

"Not always," said Mia simply. "Honestly? ... Sometimes I think I collect men for the same reason you keep answering your phone. Because it's good to be needed, isn't it? Makes you feel less alone."

It was more of her life than she had ever confessed to any human being. She could almost see the questions popping into Sarah's innocent mind, but she tightened her lips, visibly holding them back, and nodded instead.

"But you know … there's only so much of ourselves we can give away without losing everything. I heard you in there," gesturing toward the bathroom stall. "What about the next time he calls you? And the next time, and the next?"

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, as if she couldn't even contemplate it.

"Sooner or later you'll crack under the pressure, if you haven't already. You won't be much good to him as his roommate at whatever institution you're keeping him."

Sarah flinched. Mia had the feeling that no one, including the doctors, had ever been so blunt with her before about her situation.

"Sometimes," Sarah murmured, looking into the mirror as if it were a window to the past, "Sometimes he has good days. He can remember our parents, Christmases when we were little … this year I got him this super-long scarf like the one from _Doctor Who_ , and he remembered how we used to watch the show together. That's why I keep answering – in case he's having a good day. I'm afraid to miss one. They're so rare."

For a moment, something shone in Sarah's face that left Mia almost with a sense of awe. The strength it must take to love someone as steadily and selflessly as Sarah loved her brother was hard to fathom. _She deserves to be happy,_ Mia surprised herself by thinking. _If anyone does._

"What about _your_ good days, Sarah?" she asked pointedly. "When was the last time you had one?"

Sarah's redhead complexion flooded with pink. Her hands flew to cover her cheeks, but it was too late. Mia knew that look. She was almost beyond blushing now, but as a teenager, she had seen that look in the mirror more than once after a really hot date.

"Aha! What's his name? Oh no, let me guess." She snapped her fingers. "It's Carl, isn't it? I saw you two at the Christmas party, you were practically shagging on the dance floor. You even left together."

"Ben called me that night," Sarah muttered, hiding behind her hair. "Twice. It was one of his bad days. After the second time, Carl … left."

Mia swallowed a laugh. She could just imagine it – Sarah chittering into the phone like an anxious bird, saying "babe" and "darling", and Carl sitting there with a tent in his pants and a pout on his handsome face. He wasn't Mia's type – too sleek and self-satisfied, like a _GQ_ model without the money – but she still pitied Sarah more than ever for letting such a dish get away.

"It's not too late," Mia said firmly. "He still watches you. I've noticed." (In fact she had noticed no such thing, but a judicious white lie or two could be very helpful in situations like these.

"Really?" Sarah pushed back her hair again in that characteristic gesture, hopeful this time as well as nervous.

Mia remembered how, the night of the Christmas party, she had seen Carl winding one of those red strands through his fingers, delicately, like silk. None of Mia's lovers ever touched her hair like that. They didn't get the chance; her black bob was held in its perfect shape by more product every day than Sarah probably used in a month. Mia was rarely disposed to envy any woman less attractive or confident than herself, but for a fraction of a second, she envied Sarah.

"Really," said Mia. "Now fix that face of yours and get back out there."

She opened her purse and handed Sarah a tube of her own expensive moisturizer. Sarah took it with a smile of such brightness that makeup, for once, seemed unnecessary.

A few minutes later, sitting at her desk, Mia glanced up from her work and saw Sarah hovering in front of Carl's office door. She took one step forward, one step back, raised her fist to knock, dropped it again. It was infuriating. Mia clenched her teeth and stared resolutely at her computer screen.

The swish of a door opening, a bump, and Carl and Sarah stuttering apologies in unison, made her look up again.

He had come through the door with a stack of documents, which had scattered on the floor. Sarah dove down to pick them up for him, stuttering apologies, as if she had scattered the plans for the Sistine Chapel or God only knew what. He knelt down beside her, ignoring any risk to his pleated trousers on the carpeting, and covered her hand with his.

She calmed at once.

He spoke a few words in his soft, deep voice, too quietly for Mia to hear. He had to lean in close for Sarah's whispered reply. Mia still had eyes, however, and when she saw Sarah take the infamous mobile out of her skirt pocket, press its power button, and look up at Carl with glowing determination, that was all Mia needed to know.

He gathered up his papers, stood up, and helped Sarah to her feet. She put away her mobile and reached up to push back her hair, which never could seem to stay in place. Carl saw the gesture, smiled, and with his free hand, tucked back the soft coppery strands behind her left ear.

Over her shoulder, Mia could see Harry watching through the glass wall to his office. The manager's dark eyes behind their tortoiseshell glasses saw everything, it seemed. They met hers with brief, piercing scrutiny, as if he could read her thoughts in all their private pettiness, before he drew his curtains shut. She fingered her collarbone, thinking of the gold heart necklace she never wore.

She turned away.


End file.
